Junk food vs. oral health Whenever I go on vacation (I just got back from one on Thursday), I allow myself to eat whatever I want. It’s never all junk food mind you, but I do have my share. I do it for two reasons. One, I get to enjoy certain foods that I never…
Happy 4th of July everyone. Enjoy your day off and thank you for following the blog. I’m currently in Virginia on a 4 day vacation with my wife and daughter so I will not be posting anything this week except the message you are now reading of course : ). My goal is to do…
When I first started blogging for real in January of 2014, meaning consistently blogging once per week, one of my long term goals at the time was to directly monetize my blog, primarily through sponsorship. I no longer have that goal and here’s why. I don’t want outside pressure to taint what I say, or…
The story behind the Kona Adapter I’ve been asked many times over the years about how the Kona Adapter came to be, and I have shared some info here and there, but have never really shared the whole story. Here’s that story. For those who don’t know, the Kona Adapter is a dental product that…
Below are some of the primary characteristics of what defines a profession (as opposed to just a vocation, career or job). Do dental hygienists fit the definition? 1. Obtaining specialized knowledge (usually through a college or university program) Yes. 2. Continuous education for life Yes. 3. Member of a professional body Yes. 4. High…
Why should I join the ADHA? During dental hygiene school all my classmates and I became student members of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA). I don’t recall if membership was mandatory at the time, but it sure felt like it was. What I do clearly remember is that our instructors strongly emphasized the…
In a recent article, Insider Monkey created a list of cities with the highest demand for dental hygienists, but unfortunately, the methodology used to come up with that list is completely illogical. The following excerpt from the article explains what they did. “…we sought to determine the 11 cities with the highest demand for dental…
A few weeks ago I came across an interesting article entitled, “The myth of cross-training”, by Shirley Gutkowski, RDH, BSDH. The article essentially argues against the concept of cross-training dental employees across “departments” (e.g hygiene department, front desk department, etc.). Most hygienists disagree The article was shared on one of the popular dental hygiene Facebook…
I’ve been using the Isolite product since 2008 and it has become an integral part of how I do what I do in hygiene. I can no longer live without it. If you tried taking it away from me at this point, along with a few others products like loupes, I would probably have to…
In a recent blog post, “Does the market really want college educated dental hygienists?”, I mentioned in a side note that Alabama dental hygienists earn the lowest wages in the United States. The implication of that side note was that the existence of the Alabama Dental Hygiene Program (a one year program) is one of…